Bandai Namco released two new videos for Tekken 7 today that prominently feature the game's Executive Producer Katsuhiro Harada and Michael Murray, a Senior Game Designer. One video delves into the inspiration behind and execution of Tekken 7's Online Tournament Mode, while the other highlights how the developers create the game's characters.

Tekken 7's developers realized during development that the phrase "online tournament" has some negative stigma around it, as many think tournaments are only for the top-level players of online games such as this one. Harada even states that he believes less than 50% of the people who purchase a fighting game like Tekken 7 play online constantly because they don't want to keep losing horribly.

These players usually end up only playing the occasional ranked match or against their friends. That is why the developers decided to give player the ability to create their own smaller tournaments, which they can keep within their friends group or with others that are at their skill level. Winning these smaller tournaments even nets players in game items, like new costumes for the game's characters, which will encourage players to come back to this mode.

When asked about what is used as a starting block when developing a new character, Harada and Murray responded that whenever the development team starts designing a new character, they have an objective or use in mind for that character. Lars and Katarina were given as examples, as they were both designed to be easy to use for new players, but still have depth for more advanced players. Katsuhiro Harada states that the developers don't actively think of making any character "strong" or "weak", though they do have the ability to update characters if this becomes the case with them.

You can watch both of the videos below. Tekken 7 will release on PC, PS4, and Xbox One June 2.